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I Love Training Days, but…

…I love rest days just as much! It seems like they always come around just when I need them! I suppose that makes complete sense though. My rest days are scheduled in for a reason. As you might be able to tell, today is one of my rest days. I take 2-3 days of rest a week. I weight train 4 days a week and my body tells me that that is enough. Currently my schedule is as follows:

Monday- Upper Body Training

Tuesday- Lower Body Training

Wednesday- Rest

Thursday- Upper Body Training

Friday- Lower Body Training

Saturday- Rest

Sunday- Rest

Those 4 days of training cut it for me, especially if I’m on lower calories. This may seem counterintuitive, but when you’re trying to cut fat and you’re lowering your calories, you should actually lower the volume of your workouts because your body has a harder time repairing itself from your training. A lot of people increase the amount of training they do by adding in loads of cardio and more weight training when trying to lose weight, but that can lead to overtraining and catabolism. In other words, you’ll feel like crap, you won’t be able to sleep or think properly, and you’ll lose muscle. Blech! Pretty much the opposite of “fitness,” right? I DO try to maintain the amount of weight I lift though to give my muscles a reason to hang around for the long haul. THAT is why I need to rest more. After 2 days of lifting, my body is feeling pretty destroyed. After one day of rest I’m feeling pretty good and after 2 days of rest I’m feeling like She Hulk.

So what do I do on my rest days? Well, I sleep in an extra hour, I walk my dog a few miles (I also do this on my training days, lest you think I neglect my duties as a doggy-mommy) and I also try to do some stretching and foam rolling. I have a love/hate relationship with my blasted foam roller.

It may look sweet and innocent, laying there in all it’s lime green glory, but looks can be deceiving…very deceiving….

Alright, my dog is driving me nuts and the temperature is relatively warm at the moment, so I better go walk his annoying ass. Seriously, he will bother me all…..day…..long if he doesn’t get his walk, so I must do it to maintain the sanity of us both.